Technology ConnectionsI really hope y'all understand I'm trying to improve the experience here and in so doing make this a healthier and more attractive place to be.
I didn't want to be a squeaky wheel but you know what they say...
Mx. Dudula the Dud@TechConnectify Have some grease for that squeak...
Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.@TechConnectify "The nail that sticks out gets hammered down." / 出る釘は打たれる ?
don Elías (como los buses) 🥨@TechConnectify hi, your point about having agency and having your space have been exposed by people from some marginalized groups for their own reasons. I hope we get those features here so you ans others can be more comfortable
root42@TechConnectify I totally get you. And I hope you stay here on Mastodon. You are one of the accounts that really contributes a lot, both here and over on YT. Thank you.
ivory@TechConnectify as someone who uses open source software on a regular basis, and believes in its ability for wider adoption, I feel like there's a lot of the same roadblocks in general when it comes to these types of spaces
T. T. PerryIt's necessary medicine!
Molly@TechConnectify I do and I hope this gets seen and worked on.
🔻 aetios 🇪🇺@TechConnectify all good. I really quite wonder how it is for a 'large' user. i wonder if you could illustrate with some screenshots at some point.
I have had some poists that drove me crazy with how much notifications i got from it, and i can imagine it's a bit maddening to get that, along with the snark.
You CAN mute certain keywords, that might help. but it's not a great solution.
I have had some poists that drove me crazy with how much notifications i got from it, and i can imagine it's a bit maddening to get that, along with the snark.
You CAN mute certain keywords, that might help. but it's not a great solution.
Nick from Toronto@TechConnectify Hey, I completely agree with you.
I've found this place to be teeming with techno-luddites, and it's just baffling to me.
Love that you're here, and appreciate that you're willing to make a stink in order to improve things. 👍🏼
GothPanda@TechConnectify I feel like something that's continually getting lost here is the fact that different people have different needs.
Mastodon seems like it was built around/inherited the idea of old-old Twitter, where it was a place for talking to people, and if folks were an ass you could just block them and move on. It's a simple system, but it works for most folks.
As Twitter grew and became that town square experience as we knew it, folks with large followings had more need for automated...
@TechConnectify ...systems to help them curate their experience. They would just deal with a flood of too much info otherwise, some of it particularly harmful.
While Mastodon definitely hasn't been built to handle these situations, the nice thing about the system it's built on is that it allows for that flexibility, so different folks can have different experiences.
I'm not sure if you were verified on Twitter or not, but I know a lot of those automatic filtering features were reserved for...
@gothpanda I know you're in the middle of the thread, but I need you to know right now. I was not verified.
A lot of people think I'm talking about some special filter reserved for special people. No. This was a feature that was turned on by default when I joined in 2018
@TechConnectify Damn! I don't think I ever realized there was that kind of quality filter even. That just makes the whole set of interactions even more complicated. Perfect example of what I was trying to illustrate. Just damn sorry it took me three posts to get there.
Still, thanks for that info. I can definitely understand the frustration. I wish I had any kind of advice that could actually help the situation.
@TechConnectify ...verified Twitter users. So, most of us never had that kind of experience.
The folks with large followings got used to having a tool they needed, and it created an environment where others *could* just ping everyone and anyone, and it ends up developing into feeling of entitlement to time and attention. It's what folks got used to, even if their reply didn't get read.
It's a complicated story of interactions, like always.
Either way, thanks for reading this. 
Pxtl@TechConnectify have you filed any of this in the GitHub repo? Talked to Gargron about it?
Justin ⏚@Pxtl @TechConnectify Still waiting on that call back from Mastodon Systems Incorporated customer service dept.
@JustinH @Pxtl okay, and I'm sorry for bringing the example I'm going to bring up, and feel free to feel less of me as a person.
When I would tag YouTube creators on Twitter and tell them I was having a problem, you know what would happen a lot? The human person tweeting at me would tell me "I appreciate your feedback! Please go fill out this form and make that feedback again."
And you know what this felt like? Passing off the problem to someone else.
@JustinH @Pxtl if you are going to insist that I need to file a GitHub repo or whatever the heck I'm supposed to do in order to get my problems believed or listened to, it's pretty maddening.
There are people listening to me, I am talking to you now, there are many, many other people who are seeing many, many other people express these problems.
I would hope that would be enough to get some balls rolling. Otherwise, this is maddeningly bureaucratic.
@TechConnectify @Pxtl The github repo *is* the feedback form...
@JustinH @Pxtl let me put it another way. I don't use GitHub. I don't even really know much about what it is! I ran into it at one point in the past working on some 3D printing thing and from there it has been in my brain as a weird fiddly thing for nerds.
So. You are asking me to go into a space that I'm not familiar with and, with no agency at all, submit some form so that hopefully somebody somewhere else will understand what I'm saying and take action.
Do you understand the friction here?
Ignas Kiela@TechConnectify @JustinH @Pxtl That's where the developers prefer to get their feedback. You want to work with the developers or against them?
@ignaloidas @Pxtl @JustinH I'd like developers to respect users a little more, frankly.
Frankly, it's astounding to me that people don't understand what this feels like.
@TechConnectify @Pxtl @JustinH And the developers would like their users to respect them more.
None of the fediverse projects have enough money to have a "social media manager" that would go looking over the medias for complaints about the software and file them into the internal developer tracking systems. The projects have maybe 3 paid positions at most, they simply cannot afford that. They ask the users to, instead, file it into the tracking system themselves. In exchange, you get transparency to the process.
Of course, if you're umwilling to do that, you could just pay for somebody to do that for you. Or complain publicly but with clout, I guess that seems to work too.
None of the fediverse projects have enough money to have a "social media manager" that would go looking over the medias for complaints about the software and file them into the internal developer tracking systems. The projects have maybe 3 paid positions at most, they simply cannot afford that. They ask the users to, instead, file it into the tracking system themselves. In exchange, you get transparency to the process.
Of course, if you're umwilling to do that, you could just pay for somebody to do that for you. Or complain publicly but with clout, I guess that seems to work too.
Andre Louis@TechConnectify I could never get the hang of GitHub. I'm not a programmer, why should I have to use it to file an issue with something I use? An email, a standard web- form, anything other than 'bugtrack this' and 'gitpull that', count me in. I don't want to play with 'your assets' or 'download your code' I just... Want to file a problem. Like an enduser should be able to. I'm a musician, not a programmer. Why must I be one to file a problem with something I use?
tschuuuls@FreakyFwoof @TechConnectify Github has a complicated layout for this simple thing. Open the link to the repo for the thing you've got an issue with, ignore everything except the "Issues" tab. Click the "Issues" Tab: Search for your issue in different wordings to figure out if there is already an open issue. If not click new Issue. Fill out the form.
miki@9eurosyltbesucher @FreakyFwoof @TechConnectify Nevermind the fact that it's incredibly difficult to use for people with a very limited command of English. Not letting the speakers of other languages file bugs, participate in discussions about the direction of your project and request support is inherently discriminatory. Figuring out how to do this correctly is the unsexy part of open source development and nobody wants to do it, which is yet one more reason why being profit-driven instead of developer-driven often causes you to make better, more user-friendly software.
modulux@miki @9eurosyltbesucher @FreakyFwoof @TechConnectify Often? My experience with pretty much all profit-driven software is that it is even less responsive. Not excusing the lack of responsiveness of other projects though.
@miki @FreakyFwoof @TechConnectify how would you suggest this should work otherwise, if you want to file bugs in other languages the devs also needs to speak those languages to understand your issue.
Just use deepl and github issues. Nobody will rip your head off.
Other option would be emails and google docs which just gets messy at scale and things get forgotten.
Just use deepl and github issues. Nobody will rip your head off.
Other option would be emails and google docs which just gets messy at scale and things get forgotten.
@9eurosyltbesucher @FreakyFwoof @TechConnectify At least use a service that offers its UI in more than one language (Discourse perhaps), perhaps with some kind of automatic translation engine. Per-language forums for support and volunteers translating back confirmed bug reports would also go a long way.
@miki @FreakyFwoof @TechConnectify I get your point somewhat but every modern browser has site wide translation built in. Forums are not a great way to handle bug tickers. You'll know if you ever tried to navigate XDA Developers for Android custom roms back in the hayday of them.
James Scholes@9eurosyltbesucher This is quite an oversimplification. As well as having a GitHub account, these days you may also have to:
* choose an issue template;
* confirm (or lie about the fact) that you've followed a bunch of prerequisite steps, like searching for similar issues which is also not that easy to do;
* provide technical information/specifications, usually without advice on how to gather them;
* familiarise yourself with variations on the "new issue" form now that repos can choose to turn their templates into custom ones;
* justify/debate the priority of what you're reporting;
* determine which follow-up questions/comments to respond to and which to ignore, because much judgement will come from the "peanut gallery";
* share your issue with your friends (who may also not have GitHub accounts) so they can give it a thumbs-up and demonstrate its importance;
* ... and the list goes on.
All this so that you can receive endless bikeshedding that you don't understand, radio silence, useless prompts for updates, and ultimately a "stale" notification from a bot. GitHub's modern features for issue management are fundamentally skewed towards maintainers and contributors, rather than reporters.
@jscholes @FreakyFwoof @TechConnectify I have dealt with all those reporting issues before. But just sending surveys into the void (a random support email that nobody reads) doesn't fix anything either.
The problem in this case is not github but rather the people responding to the tickets (which are the same one that brought you the hurdles on reporting).
This whole debacle is just not easy to solve, because if the project gets big enough, you are going to have a bad time managing issue reports.
The problem in this case is not github but rather the people responding to the tickets (which are the same one that brought you the hurdles on reporting).
This whole debacle is just not easy to solve, because if the project gets big enough, you are going to have a bad time managing issue reports.
🏳️⚧️PepperTheVixen🦯@FreakyFwoof @TechConnectify I use GitHub regularly and I despise filing issues. The interface feels borderline hostile as a screen reader user. Don't even get me started on reviewing pull requests with their web editor thing
0x@ignaloidas @TechConnectify @Pxtl @JustinH Surely you understand that making GitHub the "preferred" way to get feedback biases input from software developers. Then surely you also understand why people who are not software developers feel like they aren't listened to. And finally, surely you understand that this is a problem if we don't want this place to be a pathetic alt-tech-circlejerk.
@ignaloidas @TechConnectify @Pxtl @JustinH I have to point out — because I already feel what I know is a sliver of the frustration TechConnectify must when reading your replies — you are exactly part of the problem he is referring to. You're not only dismissive, you're implying some anti-collaborative motive while trying to stymie collaboration. It is, as has been well put, maddening to even be in the vicinity of.
@JustinH @Pxtl if that's not bureaucratic, or that's not some way of saying "I refuse to empathize with people who will not take action to help themselves" I don't know what it is.
This is me telling you now, and I tried to tell it with a story of how the YouTube creators tactic of saying "thanks for the feedback! It's meaningless though until you do this" is utterly maddening.
@JustinH @Pxtl and just to be clear, cuz I fear I may be misunderstood here, I am not suggesting that you personally or anyone involved in this thread needs to make these things happen on my behalf. I don't even know if you are in a position to do that.
I am just highlighting my personal irritation with "unless feedback goes through certain channels it's not valid feedback"
And I can't get into details, but I have specific reasons to not trust the process here.
@TechConnectify @Pxtl No I know, I'm not offended, just trying to help you wrap your brain around the open source world.
(Most) everyone contributing to Mastodon at all levels is a volunteer. Getting frustrated at "Mastodon" for a feature you feel is missing is like getting upset at a soup kitchen ladler for not carrying a gluten free option. It's a reasonable complaint, but not an efficient path to actually fixing the problem.
@JustinH @Pxtl Good, I was worried I was stepping in something.
I will just put it this way, though - in my life experience, fixating solely on a to-do list without looking at the broader picture is a mistake. If nothing else, I would hope somebody on the dev team is monitoring the goings-on and tweaking which things should be prioritized.
That thing in particular is the thing that I don't think happens enough if at all.
@JustinH @Pxtl again, I don't want to get into the details of a private conversation especially because it happened a while ago and I might have misinterpreted what I was hearing, but it didn't go very well from my perspective. An actual human speaking to someone in a position of power that things were not going well, was not met very sympathetically.
@TechConnectify @JustinH while Mastodon is volunteer-run, it's got a good stable of donors. Its Patreon take isnt bad for example, but I don't know how much hosting costs eat out of that.
But it's very visible that they don't seem great at prioritizing. Like, "group all the like/toot notifications for a single toot together into one entry" has been getting bickering instead of actions since *2017*:
https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/1483#issuecomment-1822235189
@Pxtl @JustinH oh boy. I didn't know it went back that far.
This is also probably part of the friction where I describe features that Twitter implemented after Mastodon had already started. If they stopped using Twitter at that point, they don't know what I'm talking about.
I'm pretty much running into this left and right when I talk about the quality filter. Lots of people assume this was something for blue checks or that it hid way more stuff than it did.
Jes Moved to @@TechConnectify @JustinH @Pxtl a lot of github devs HATE it when you just @ them outside of the repo and ask them to fix it. in the best of cases, they'll link you to the issue tracker (even if they're the only one editing the repo, which in a project as large as masto, they're not) and in the worst they'll get mad at you for not using the issue tracker.
the github issues board is how they organize and assign issues/features and gives a central place for all the developers and managers to see and respond to the issue. telling them to do something outside of the issues board is functionally useless to them.
most issue/bug report pages give you a form to fill out, and a lot of them make it very simple to submit one, and even if you don't have all the information required, they'd usually either be willing to help you or direct you towards the wiki pages.
best case scenario someone's already opened an issue and you can bump it by giving it a star.
the github issues board is how they organize and assign issues/features and gives a central place for all the developers and managers to see and respond to the issue. telling them to do something outside of the issues board is functionally useless to them.
most issue/bug report pages give you a form to fill out, and a lot of them make it very simple to submit one, and even if you don't have all the information required, they'd usually either be willing to help you or direct you towards the wiki pages.
best case scenario someone's already opened an issue and you can bump it by giving it a star.
@Jessica @JustinH @Pxtl I will grant that my frustration here likely comes from the fact that I actually worked in customer service roles for years. In the hospitality industry specifically. And in those roles, it was literally my job to make other people's problems my problem to solve.
That may very well be an unreasonable expectation for me to have in this circumstance, but to be honest it does feel pretty dehumanizing to be on the other side now and not see any of those principles.
@TechConnectify @JustinH @Pxtl if you think about it from the aspects of the person writing the code, getting constant request to fix insert issue here rather than actual conversations on their personal account is really annoying to some people
it is a different situation when you're dealing with a company with a large group of people and a social media manager that can actually input your issue into an issue tracker, but devs do this because either they want to or because they use the product themselves.
there was a github user that completely left the FOSS world and dropped off the internet because people were basically following this guy around and spamming his other repos with issues about the one he closed the issue tracker on because people wouldn't read the wiki or bother to learn the basics by themselves. he ended up deleting the repo files.
it is a different situation when you're dealing with a company with a large group of people and a social media manager that can actually input your issue into an issue tracker, but devs do this because either they want to or because they use the product themselves.
there was a github user that completely left the FOSS world and dropped off the internet because people were basically following this guy around and spamming his other repos with issues about the one he closed the issue tracker on because people wouldn't read the wiki or bother to learn the basics by themselves. he ended up deleting the repo files.
@TechConnectify @Jessica @Pxtl I find it helpful to see myself as a contributor, not a customer. Even just "filling out the feedback form" is a contribution! That moves it from "dehumanizing" to "empowering" pretty quickly.
@TechConnectify @JustinH @Pxtl I made my first github issue a year ago and they were receptive to the idea and we got into a convo on how it should be made, and it got implemented within a day or two.
it can never hurt to ask for a feature you might want. worst you can get is a "wont-fix" or immediate close.
it can never hurt to ask for a feature you might want. worst you can get is a "wont-fix" or immediate close.
@Jessica @TechConnectify @JustinH one cute thing with GH is it has a graph of days showing your contributions -- the usual gameification nonsense. And it treats issue management as a real contribution, not just pushing code.
Yes it treats code as the most important part, (because it is) but it still treats everything else as important and valid ways to help a project.
@Pxtl @TechConnectify @JustinH there's nothing more important than the devs getting feedback on what features they want.
@TechConnectify @Jessica @Pxtl The real danger is that once you do change your perspective, you start growing your own vegetables and following Cory Doctorow around the country in a solar powered van.
Manpacket@TechConnectify @JustinH @Pxtl
As somebody who uses GitHub both to submit and receive feedback - it's not that hard. You start by making an account, then go to issues (https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon) seems to be the right one, add some title and describe a problem you have in plain English, optionally with some solution you see. It doesn't have to be technical and you are good at describing things anyway.
I can try to help you with the initial ticket but it will be more productive if you visit there and answer authors questions they might have.
Kurt Kremitzki@TechConnectify may I try to tip the scales a bit the other way and say: thank you. I appreciate you.